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When I arrived there everything was completely different. It wasn’t a fairytale as I thought it would be. I had already been told that it wouldn’t be the perfect life that I imagined, but my imagination always spoke higher than reason. I was nicely welcomed in the suburb of New York by refugees from my home country, but life outside the neighborhood was unfair and tough for us refugees.
Some Americans weren’t as home welcoming as my new friends. Lots of times they were impolite and sometimes even racists. Finding a job while pursuing my dream of being a writer was one of the most difficult things. As soon as everyone realized that I wasn’t an American citizen, because I didn’t speak the language very well or because I don’t have a social security number, they wouldn’t accept me.
And that was a big problem for me, but after a few months I met a really sweet lady that was a department store owner. Fortunately, she saw my potential and agreed to give me a job until I managed to write poetry for a living.
Just like that my dream started to come true, step by step, and now I´m happy to say that what you just read is going to be a part of my very first book, “The Story of Layla”.
Artwork by: Julia McPartlin